Economic Migration of Eastern Europeans in the UK after the UK Referendum Held in 2016

Magdalena Kotýnková,T Kliestik

doi:10.1051/shsconf/20207405011

Abstract

The economic status of Eastern European migrants has become a major issue in the UK, as it was one of the main arguments for leaving the European Union in the 2016 Referendum. The negative view on migrants from Eastern Europe in the UK relies on the fact that these migrants are a major burden for the British social and healthcare system. At the same time, however, the issue of modern slavery is discussed, based on the fact that Eastern Europeans in the UK are willing to work under undignified working conditions. The aim of the paper is to analyse and evaluate the economic status of Eastern Europeans on the UK labour market. The paper is based on the theoretical concept of the dual labour market, which is used in the analysis of real data. The dataset used was prepared by the UK Office for National Statistics (GB): As the conclusion, the expected changes in migration of the Eastern Europeans after the UK’s leaving the European Union, currently scheduled for 31 November 2020, are given.

Highlights

The status of East European migrants in the UK is a very topical issue, given the outcome of the UK referendum held in 2016, where the main argument for leaving the European Union was the large immigration from Eastern Europe
Net migration is the measure of the net flow of migrants into and out of a country, it means the difference between immigration and emigration: the number of people moving to live in a particular country minus the number of people moving out of that country to live elsewhere The datasets used were prepared by the UK Office for National Statistics: Population of the UK by country of birth and nationality [5,6] and dataset Labour Force Survey [7]
A large group of migrants was born in Romania (390,000), ranked fourth

Summary

Introduction

The status of East European migrants in the UK is a very topical issue, given the outcome of the UK referendum held in 2016, where the main argument for leaving the European Union (hereinafter: EU) was the large immigration from Eastern Europe. Official figures show that net migration from the Eastern European countries which joined the European Union in 2004 rose sharply following the accession and peaked in 2007. The rise in net migration from Eastern Europe has likely been driven in large part by the fact that wages available in the UK are considerably higher than in countries of origin. The rise in the Polish-born population has more than tripled in size between 2007 to 2018, even though the number of Polish migrants began to decline after the 2016 Referendum.

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